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Thank you for the numerous replies I had to my post and I will pass them
on to my friend now I have some proof to back up what I had tried to
explain to her initialy.  I did forget to mention that my friend's
husband is in his 70s and has only been diagnosed about 15 years so this
really should say it all to him, also according to my friend it was his
dietician that told him this.

Here is a brief summary for those that asked of the replies I recieved.


I would say it is true just for the fact that your risk for intestinal
cancer goes up extremely if you do not stick to a GF diet, therefore you
could die from cancer therefore making your life shorter.if you develop
cancer or something because of continual damage to the intestines, then
that is a risk. We need to be more diligent, certainly, because our
choices are more limited, but there is no reason that I can't be a
healthy person.

(This was a common reply in most of my reply) In Prevention Magazine
November 2000 issue, it states that it takes 5 years on the gluten free
diet to put Celiacs on par with the rest of the population's risk for
certain cancers.

Well we know that eating gluten does damage which cIt's impossible to go
through life without having a gluten accident every once in a while. If
you're really good, maybe you can keep it down to, say, one a year. If
each time you ate gluten it shortens your life by five years, then every
infant with CD would only live to 15 years old or so........ but to my
knowledge, there is NO real evidence that this tale is true.  -Certainly
not as to defining the shortened time! Uncontrolled celiacs have a
lifetime cancer incidence of 15%, according to a paper at one medical
conference I attended, largely from the risk of lymphoma. Osteoporosis,
which is a common celiac complication,  often leads to broken hips in
the elderly, which greatly increases mortality in its victims.

Celiac neurological complications can be fatal, according to the
literature.

Several outcomes are possible:

- you increase your chance of getting lymphoma - the exact increase is
hard to determine, but may be in the range of 5 - 12 % per year higher
than the general population

- you run the risk of activating a second auto-immune disease - again,
this is a developing concept, but it appears that the genes for
diabetes, lupus, celiac and a number of other auto-immune diseases are
on the same chromosome. Further, the activation sequence is only being
gradually understood, but many celiacs report having more than one.

Loved this one and thought it put it all in perspective willl certianly
show my friend this one

The quote reminds me of one that got started in my business.  I'm a
Sales Director in Mary Kay Cosmetics.  Some years ago I heard that
everytime you slept in your makeup, you age 7 days. We had a laugh over
it; however, it certainly made us think about cleaning our faces every
night, and many certainly didn't want to take the chance!

Possible this "tale" comes from the evidence of people with CD
developing carcinomas if they don't follow the gluten free diet

Here are some websites that will list many of the health problems that
result from a celiac not following the diet
http://www.celiaccenter.org/index.htm &  http://www.celiac.com/  &
http://www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/   http://www.finerhealth.com/

Every gluten accident is a hit on the immune system, the consequences of
which are unknown, no celiac should deliberately consume gluten.  And
after saying what we have to exclude, we have to acknowledge that there
is a lot of gray area regarding what is safe.  Each must assess and then
assume some risk in our g.f. lifestyle, like trusting a chef to make us
a g.f. meal or a manufacturer's product to be g.f. when it's supposed to
be. Only sure way to insure we consume no gluten is to eat nothing and
then we die anyway...

So in conclusion I think most agreed thre is a risk in eating gluten( I
already knew that) but the statement as to it shortening our life is
unsubstanstiated, and most likely untrue, probably he misunderstood what
he was told as there is a common belief backed up by research that it
takes us 5 years before we can be equal as to our risk of cancer or
lymphona as the general population.

Thanks again for you time and replies I am sure this will benefit my
friend, also I love this list I have learned so much so thank you one
and all who take the time to supply us with information.  My suggestion
here is that we need a chatroom so we can shat to one another.

Thank you Christina.